Meet Treb Heining: The GOP’s balloon man

TAMPA — Treb Heining has dedicated his life to balloons. He sold them at Disneyland in high school. He popularized balloon arch and column designs. He carved out a niche in the burgeoning balloon decorating industry in the 1970s and he owns Glass House, an Anaheim, Calif.-based balloon company that is a global player in an industry that he says employs about 50,000 people worldwide.

And on Thursday night, he will use his lifetime of experience to make sure that over 100,000 balloons and 500 pounds of confetti rain down as planned on the convention floor when Mitt Romney concludes his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination.

"It's going to be real pretty," Heining, 58, said in an interview Wednesday in the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where his balloons are held in nets 120 feet above the convention floor. The extravaganza will take about 5-10 minutes and feature different confetti shapes and 3-foot diameter balloons in a design coordinated between Heining and convention executive producer, Phil Alongi. About 20 people are needed to release the balloons and confetti from catwalks.

Heining has orchestrated every GOP convention balloon drop since 1988 — a process that generally begins in the spring and concludes the Friday before a convention begins. He relies on local high school students who use an air compressor to fill the balloons and then hand-tie them and place them in the nets. Technicians string them from the rafters.

A self-described "former band kid," Heining says he usually pulls students from local music programs. "I find the high school music programs always have the best students in the school, they're used to working together," he said. In exchange for their work, Heining said he cuts a "sizeable check" to fund the school's music program.

Balloons have played a starring role in closing convention speeches at least since the 1950s. For Heining, it's easy to understand why. "When people see a lot of balloons, when they walk in to a party or they walk in to an event like this and they see hundreds of thousands of balloons coming down or arranged perfectly, they go, 'Wow!'" he said, "I think it goes to that part of your soul and it says: this is a special event, this is really cool to be at. And when you're doing it in a political arena like this, when the music is going and the people are cheering, I don't think there's any effect as spectacular as a well-executed balloon drop."

And there's nothing more nerve-wracking for a balloon man that a drop failure, as Democrats experienced in 2004 following John Kerry's acceptance speech in Boston. "I feel bad for the people that that happened to," Heining said, noting that there's never been a balloon failure on his watch. "I'm 99.9% sure everything is going to go right, but will I be nervous that night? You're darn right I will be."

Heining has handled balloons for 18 Super Bowls, the 1984 Olympics, and other major events. But as for conventions, he said 1992 is a stand out. Held at the Astrodome in Houston, they released more than 150,000 balloons and used balloons that were 5 feet in diameter for the first time. "And it turned out to be one of the most spectacular conventions ever," he said.

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About Catalina Camia

Catalina Camia leads the OnPolitics online community and has been at USA TODAY since 2005. She has been a reporter or editor covering politics and Congress for two decades, including stints at The Dallas Morning News and Congressional Quarterly. Follow her at @USATOnPolitics.